The Hired Man

A legion of men boom out ‘The War Song’ as they stand stiff in a fading light, holding high an array of rifles and farming tools. It is just one of many moving moments in director Andrew Keates’s robust revival of Melyvn Bragg and Howard Goodall’s ‘The Hired Man’.

The musical, written in 1984, covers the fields of Cumbria, burrows deep into the mines and blasts through the battlefields of World War I. It is epic in scale, but Keates’s production fits beautifully inside the Landor Theatre.

We open at the turn of the twentieth century with ‘Song of The Hired Man’, an ode to a life of pastoral pursuit and a typically rousing number from composer Goodall. There is something exhilarating about watching such a powerful ensemble piece up close. The small space transforms the group numbers into something much more personal and, rather than watching a group of farmers, we see instead a cluster of colourful individuals. When the time comes for these young men to be packed off to war, we feel their loss acutely.

Goodall is not a straightforward composer and the singers occasionally slide off key. Joe Maxwell initially struggles with some opening songs but finds his range in the affecting lament ‘Blackrock’.

But it is as one that this impressive company speaks loudest, and, as Goodall’s thumping beats tear through the theatre, it’s as if the stamping feet of the farmers are walking among us.